Bayo Onanuga, the Special Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Information and Strategy has knocked the presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 election for playing ethnic cards in the build-up to the election.
Onanuga made the remark when he was hosted by Seun Okinbaloye on a live podcast, ‘Mic On’.
He said, “What I know about the campaign of Obi was that for the first time in a very long while in our country, we had a candidate who was inflaming ethnic passions. And that was the way the election went at that time.
“He was inflaming ethnic passions, religious passions, bringing two dangerous things to our politics – ethnicity and religion. That is what he did. And those things were dangerous to our Nigerian politics.”
Onanuga said that his principal did not choose his running mate because he was a fellow Muslim.
He said: “If Asiwaju (Bola Tinubu) had done that, we would not have lost Lagos. (Muslim-Muslim ticket) was not religious. Muslim-Muslim ticket did not even win him massive votes; let’s say in Borno where his deputy came from. The man he picked as his VP, he believed that Shettima had the qualities to support him or to be his Vice President. That is why he picked him. He was not looking at religion.”
Recall that in the build-up to the election, Obi was was seen attending almost every church service canvassing for support telling the church to get the country back.
Also, in the wake of the election, an audio conversation between Obi and founder of Living Faith Church Worldwide, Bishop David Oyedepo where he allegedly described the election as a ‘religious war.”
